My secret formula for April fools stunts that go viral 🃏

How to turn a one-day prank into a year-round marketing engine (includes 5 proven frameworks)

My absolute favorite holiday is April Fools’ Day, by far.

I always get some raised eyebrows when I say that, but I just love the creative freedom it brings (especially for us marketers).

Here are the best marketing ideas for making some noise on April Fools 👇

📦 Tactic #1: Launch a fake physical product

For tech companies: announce a new 'product' that takes something you do online and makes it seem like it’s becoming a real, physical thing. (You can also just invent a new physical product that fits your brand).

For example, Google once made up “Google Tulip,” a smart flower:

Duolingo presented “Duolingo Push”, where the app's owl mascot, Duo, visits users’ homes to make them complete more lessons. It is funny because Duolingo has a reputation for aggressive notification tactics to encourage daily use.

And let’s not forget the trend of those AI-generated Lego sets from a few months ago. What if, just for April Fools, your brand brought one into existence?

💎 Tactic #2: Build the first-ever {something} for your audience

My best secret for achieving virality is to mix the expected with the unexpected.

In practice, the framework I’m using for virality is to take a usual expected thing → then change ONE element only (without overcomplicating the twist!).

Just like those “What If...?” episodes from Marvel that only twist one detail of the MCU.

Try this: How can you creatively fill in this PR headline?

“Introducing the world’s first {something} for {audience}!”

The idea is to come up with a fun, made-up product/website/service and say it’s the ‘world's first’ for your specific audience.

Last year at Wiz, we made a pretend cybersecurity toy store called CISOtopia, full of funny, fake toys: It’s the world’s first {toy store} for {cybersecurity professionals}. Of course, it’s not a real store — it’s just a simple website I built with 3D renders of some fake toys we came up with (we paid a 3D artist to model them).

The key here was to write the product descriptions and nail the toys’ ideas.

For example, one of the cybersecurity toys is these special blindfolds that you should give your legal team whenever there is a security breach.

We shared CISOtopia on LinkedIn and it went insanely viral. People loved it, talking about it on Twitter and Reddit as well. CISOtopia was so successful that we actually transformed it from a one-time stunt into a long-term lead-gen engine. Try to buy one of the toys and see what happens :)

By the way, this year we are following the exact same formula. In 2 weeks, we will launch another first-ever {SOMETHING} for cybersecurity professionals. It’s going to be huge! Follow us on LinkedIn to be the first to know about it 👀

🚫 Tactic #3: Launch an impossible feature

Add a made-up feature to your product — something that couldn’t really happen in real life. Like the language learning browser extension Toucan, who launched a ‘Woof’ <> English translation tool:

Another example is Tinder, with its ‘height verification’ feature to guarantee honesty in dating profiles. Their announcement suggested users would need to upload a picture of themselves next to a commercial building — to prove their height.

Remember: when the technology doesn’t exist yet, April Fools’ is the best day to imagine it does!

🐥 Tactic #4: Make a huge “mistake”

Warner Bros dropped a "Detective Pikachu: Full Picture" video on YouTube, three days before the film's premiere. Ryan Reynolds, the voice of Pikachu, tweeted the link, claiming the movie was leaked.

But... Instead of the movie, the YouTube video included a 2-hour video of Pikachu dancing (after a realistic opening, of course). Gave me Rick Roll vibes. 😂  The prank, costing $0 in paid promotion, attracted 40 million views and almost 100,000 likes on Twitter, generating HUGE buzz for the film right before its premiere. Genius move!

⚰️ Tactic #5: Shut down the company (but not really)

This is for the daring: pretend you're closing down your most popular service/feature, then reveal it was all a joke.

That’s exactly what OnlyFans did: After initially saying they’d ban adult content, they quickly reversed with a “just kidding” update, causing a big discussion online. This bold PR stunt got everyone talking.

By the way, it’s also a great way to learn how important your product is to your users.

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Pro Tip: Launch your April Fools’ campaign before April 1st. I always love launching my stunts in late March. It catches people off-guard, making the impact even bigger, and you won’t have to compete for attention with all the other pranks :)

Know other creative stunts? Leave a comment with your favorite prank ✍️

See you next week,

Tom